Tito arrives

The Russian spacecraft carrying the first ever space tourist docked with the International Space Station on Monday morning, just 14 hours after the shuttle Endeavour left.

Dennis Tito made history as the first person to pay to go into space when he blasted off in a Soyuz 2 craft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Saturday. He arrived at the ISS at 0757 GMT on Monday, 10 minutes earlier than scheduled.

Tito will stay on the ISS for a week. He says he plans to look out of the windows, take pictures with a video camera and listen to CDs while at the station. He is expected to spend most of his &dollar;20 million trip in the Russian-built Zvezda service module and asleep in the Soyuz. NASA has insisted that a member of the station crew escort him when he visits American parts of the station.

Parking problems at the space station initially threatened to delay the docking. Endeavour was supposed to leave the station on Saturday, after delivering the Canadarm2 robot. However, NASA delayed the departure while it tried to fix a series of problems with the station’s three command and control computers.

After getting all three computers up and running on Sunday morning, NASA cleared the shuttle’s departure later in the day. Had the shuttle remained docked, the Soyuz would have been forced to wait at a safe distance from the station.

Last week, Russia ignored NASA pleas to delay the Soyuz launch. Time is of the essence because Russia is exchanging the Soyuz 2 for the Soyuz 1 Spacecraft, which carried the first crew to the station last year. Batteries and propellant on the Soyuz 1 are coming to the end of their limited lifetimes.

Current plans call for a May 6 landing back on Earth. The Soyuz 1’s use-by date is May 11 or 12, which left the Russians little margin for delay.

The Americans have insisted that a member of the station crew accompany Tito in non-Russian parts of station. NASA has also said it will make no effort to cover the American tourist’s visit.